Wednesday, December 31, 2008

When Good Causes Go Bad

I could just be overreacting, or just being somewhat onerous (lord knows I never do that), but it seems to me that there is a fair amount of misinformation used in rather a lot of public health campaigns.

Take this new "Syke" campaign against teen smoking. On their front page, as an example of the ways that the vile, odious cigarette companies attempt to manipulate pure, innocent children, there is an old ad spot from the Flintstones in the sixties for Winston brand cigarettes. I'm going to go out on a limb here and reckon that the people running this campaign weren't actually alive when the Flintstones originally aired, else they'd have known that the cartoon was played during "prime time" and intended for an older audience. They appear to be working off of the long-standing but fallacious assumption that cartoons and comics are, were, and always will be for children and no others.

This societal specification of cartoons as a source of entertainment limited to children has helped mark what is socially assumed to be the maturation of children into adults for decades. When children stopped watching cartoons and started watching whatever insipid teen oriented programs that existed, they were thought to be "growing up." Among other things it created a boundary for the play and entertainment of children and adults, further enforcing a social divide between the age groups necessary in order to maintain the "inherent" dominance of adults and inferiority of children. When children were willing to forgo their "traditional" forms of entertainment, then they were allowed the privileges (and responsibilities, in most cases) of adults.

Anyway, it does destroy a tiny bit of credibility for the campaign to make such an erroneous assumption, regardless of its ubiquity.

(If this post were pretentious, I would have said "irregardless" instead)

7 comments:

Interesting observations. This is kind of similar to how teachers ALWAYS drink soda, but students cant. Does that mean students have to be healthy until they are exposed to the poor choices they make in their process of growing up? hmm. This doesnt make much sense does it?

Most teachers I've known drink coffee, an equally unhealthy habit. Everybody has their drugs. Mine is sugary drinks, theirs is bitter caffeinated brews of roasted beans. or seeds, I think. Seeds.

Anyhoo, that's more like something that people do individually rather than a health campaign. I think an equitable one would be having a dental group quote a disproven study that states that soda causes tooth decay. It may still be factual, but it isn't accurate.

Of course, I don't quote anything. So, I don't have room to talk. Perhaps I can get away with simply quoting wikipedia for everything.

Peer pressure is pretty much the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning, so I guess it's cool in my book.

The problem is that it has a really loose definition. "peer pressure" could be defined as anything from coercion to join the army to using utensils to eat your food. pretty much everything people do, they do because other people also do them. We run into problems when deviants begin doing things other people don't do, like polygamy, homosexual relations and placing your head on the ground facing a certain direction three times a day.

wouldn't life be fascinating if everyone were a devout Muslim? If every one of the six billion of us prayed at the same time, regardless of location or something? If a caliphate demanded that jumping jacks were part of the regimen, would we slowly tilt the earth out of its orbit?

True this. But there are other reasons to do most of the things we do outside of popularity or peer pressure. We go to work because we want to eat, and by extension need money. We could live off the Earth, except that houses and apartments are just too comfortable. By and large, we still accept/reject cultural norms on an arbitrary basis.

Most people aren't like most other people most of the time, even if there are prevailing trends.

Am I delusional to think that most of my arbitrary choices are somehow rooted in utility and function?

Poorly defined, yes. But the Army and kitchen utensils also serve practical functions. Maybe the more revealing trend isn't so much 'that' we use utensils, but which utensils we use?

Example: Why is it so much better to perform the labor of cutting our own steak, instead of a more Asian system where most foods can be consumed with such simple and economical wares as chopsticks and the occasional spoon?

True this. But there are other reasons to do most of the things we do outside of popularity or peer pressure. We go to work because we want to eat, and by extension need money. We could live off the Earth, except that houses and apartments are just too comfortable. By and large, we still accept/reject cultural norms on an arbitrary basis.

We work because society tells us it is the only way to survive. It tells us this by providing one or two working parents in a household throughout the childhood, and through peer pressure to get a job in highschool.

Homes and apartments being comfortable generally depends on the social upbringing of the person in question. A person who has had no home or a poor one as a child will value a warm shelter far more than a person who has always lived in a spacious and warm house. Basically though, people live where they do because society has deemed where they should live through price barriers, racism, or desire to live near friends or relatives. We don't live in houses simply because they are comfortable, we live in houses because everyone else does except the smelly people on the street.

Most people aren't like most other people most of the time, even if there are prevailing trends.

Most people are like other people most of the time in cultures. That's what makes them cultures. Finding differences is pretty much splitting hairs. Most people in America agree with the idea of public education, if not the implementation. Most people in America agree that the government should be giving some sort of benefit to the people, If they disagree what those should be. Most people in America agree that women should have suffrage, and universal civil rights, if the degree of follow through varies. If nothing else we can agree on what we dislike. Most Americans hate terrorists, pedophiles, rapists, and murderers, if they disagree on what should be done with them.

Am I delusional to think that most of my arbitrary choices are somehow rooted in utility and function?

Yes. If all your choices were rooted in utility and function, you'd kill people that were barriers to things that you desired. You'd carry a handgun around everywhere and shoot people in front of you in lines.

Poorly defined, yes. But the Army and kitchen utensils also serve practical functions. Maybe the more revealing trend isn't so much 'that' we use utensils, but which utensils we use?

Example: Why is it so much better to perform the labor of cutting our own steak, instead of a more Asian system where most foods can be consumed with such simple and economical wares as chopsticks and the occasional spoon?

Peer Pressure again strikes.

No one eats with chopsticks only in this country. How dare you be a deviant? Everyone upon everyone has grown up with their parents cutting big hunks of meat with sharp objects since time immemorial. Who do you think you are trying to affect change?

That's how peer pressure works. By playing this paragraph in your head without using words, only using your imagination and perhaps a disapproving glance or offhand comment.

Well, given that last bit, it sounds more like it is ourselves and not society that tells us how to conform in general. Which would explain why some people are socially awkward: because they are bad at perceiving said social norms.

I might disagree on the chopsticks, though. They ARE becoming quite trendy among young folk, even if their actual use is only secondary to the usual knives and forks. Which will generally irk folks who "thought of it first."

Also, there's no utility or function in killing people, these days. Much easier to wait in line than it is to disrupt the order of things and wind up on the lamb because you wanted cigarettes, a paper, and maybe some chewing gum. Where's the utility there?

So, it's hard to take that seriously when it's really just a thinly veiled fantasy of what you wish you could do. (No offense. I wouldn't mind a post-apocalyptic wasteland, myself. Or at least I'd like it better than most.)

For that matter, I've been in too many scrapes with musclebound idiots not to want a handgun. I'll probably get one, once my life is more in order. I'd fancy a derringer or small revolver, myself. You?